- More iPhone 17 CAD drawings have emerged
- A speaker design could be on the way for certain models
- It’s not clear how audio quality will be affected
Audio quality isn’t perhaps the first spec you would look out for when choosing a new phone, but it’s an important feature nevertheless – and newly leaked schematics suggest the iPhone 17 handsets could be getting a speaker revamp.
These CAD drawings come from well-known tipster @MajinBuOfficial, and have apparently been delivered through an internal source at Apple. They give us a good look at the bottom of the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
While nothing much seems to be changing with the standard iPhone 17 compared to the iPhone 16, both the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro Max are apparently getting the same number of speaker holes on each side.
As our iPhone 16 Pro review and iPhone 16 Pro Max review will tell you, the speaker configuration is currently asymmetrical on either side of the USB-C port. It would seem that this year Apple is going to even everything out.
Coming in September
3D CAD of the iPhone 17 models reveal a redesign of the speakers. The Pro and Pro Max models now have the same number of speakers per side, while the iPhone 17 Air comes with just 2 speakers per side. The speaker configuration remains unchanged on the standard iPhone 17. pic.twitter.com/b2UVYKlC5FMarch 1, 2025
The iPhone 17 Air is a brand new model this year, so we’ve got nothing to compare it with, but it sports just two speaker holes on either side – perhaps a sign of the component cutting Apple has had to do in order to make it as slim as possible.
Exactly how this is going to affect the speaker configuration or the quality of the audio is hard to say based on schematics alone, but it seems that the Pro and Pro Max phones may come with a few sound upgrades attached.
The iPhone 17 leaks really are beginning to pile up now. Renders that have previously appeared online suggest we’re going to get four phones that look significantly different to their predecessors, especially in terms of the camera module.
A variety of different internal upgrades have also been rumored, but of course none of this is certain until the phones are officially unveiled – which, if Apple sticks to its usual schedule this year, will be sometime in September.
